


Smoke

by Rtarara



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, mentions of hetero sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 08:20:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6071998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rtarara/pseuds/Rtarara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There were many advantages to superpowers, but hearing Cat doing THAT was absolutely not one of them. And if her super-vision had slipped for a moment and she saw more, that was all the worse. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to stealthwriter, Kara-lesbihonest, and Lisheque for betaing! It needed it as my laptop keyboard was breaking as I was writing it so there were issues and so many screwed up words. They are saints. Saints who sin, but still.

Kara woke to a firefighter shaking her, a look of astonishment in his eyes as she rolled over and he realized she wasn’t covered in burns. An oxygen mask she didn't need was placed over her face and she was carried out of her apartment. When she went to bed the night before, she had been exhausted from a battle and it took a long while to shut her hearing down enough for her to fall asleep. She hadn’t noticed her building had gone up in smoke until she was mid-rescue. She was the last one out of the building and there was nothing that she or Supergirl could do to mitigate the damage at that point. 

 

It was a fitting ending to a terrible week that included losing her aunt and being all but replaced at work. The thing that she least expected to see when she was being pulled from the building, however, was Cat Grant yelling frantically at the firefighters about what apartment she lived in and how ridiculous it was that she hadn’t been found yet. 

 

“Cat…?” Kara smiled for a moment before her face crumpled. Her life was going up in flames all over again and she fought back tears as she looked up and saw the building burning from the outside. 

 

“Kara!” She surged forward and examined her assistant, relieved that she wasn’t harmed. She brushed a little hair from Kara’s face. “There you are.” She sighed once she had looked Kara over thoroughly. “Always with the dramatics.” 

 

Kara smiled slightly through her tears. Cat felt familiar if nothing else did. “I don’t mean to.” She wasn’t just referring to the fire. 

 

Cat nodded, “Let’s get you cleaned up.” She led the soot covered Kara away by her arm, her thumb drawing small patterns that kept Kara grounded. It was just stuff, she tried to tell herself. There were things that mattered more. 

 

That was how she found herself living with Cat Grant while her apartment building was rebuilt. Cat took her back to the penthouse covered in soot and lent her a guestroom with a shower. It was more luxurious than her apartment, but much less ‘hers.’ She came out of it clean in borrowed shorts and a tank top to find a bowl of soup with some bread set out for her. Cat had retired for the night, but she could hear her awake for a long while after that. 

 

The day after the fire, she called her sister and made arrangements to move in with Alex so she could sleep on her sofa for the foreseeable future. That seemed like a solid plan until she ran into a casually-dressed Cat Grant who was making breakfast. It took her a second to take it all in and she had to shake her head once Cat starting speaking. 

 

“Where do you think you’re off to?” Her arms were crossed over her body.

 

“My sister’s place. I… thank you for last night. It was kind of you to let me stay. I don’t want to impose.” She tried to play with the rim of her glasses before remembering that they were lost in the blaze. 

 

“And where does your sister live in relation to CatCo?” She raised an eyebrow.

 

“Across town, but it’s really okay.” 

 

“I think you overestimate your performance. Having another assistant is no excuse for you to slack off and be absent when I need you.” Cat turned and vigorously scrambled the eggs on the stove in front of her. 

 

“Does that mean that you want me to stay here?” Kara scratched the back of her neck. “They said it would be about six months and that’s… I don’t want to intrude.”  

 

Carter piped up from the breakfast table with a wide smile, “It would be so cool to have you here, Kara. We could hang out when mom is at work and play Settlers of Catan.”

 

Cat gave her a look that said that their decision was final, so Kara nodded and took up residence in the guest room at the Grant penthouse on a more permanent basis.

 

Kara and Cat settled into an awkward sort of pattern. After the first night, Cat hadn’t particularly warmed to her—if anything, she’d been colder. Her boss was nicer when Carter was present, but when it was just the two of them Cat called her ‘Kiera’ and made little digs about her performance or her clothes. Kara would have moved out if not for the fact that she knew that there was no way that Cat would invite Siobhan to live with her and Carter in any situation. Whatever it was that was going on between them, it was complicated and she could take what Cat dished out until she solved the puzzle. It would be worth it, and even if nothing came of it, she hated how quickly the Grant residence started to feel like home. 

 

The insults leveled at her were not the part of living with Cat that troubled her. The part that troubled her was that on the nights Carter spent with his father, Cat occasionally entertained ‘guests.’ She didn’t know who they were, but they were attractive, came over late, and were quickly ushered back into Cat’s room. 

 

There were many advantages to superpowers, but hearing Cat doing  _ that _ was absolutely not one of them. And if her super-vision had slipped for a moment and she saw more, that was all the worse. The image was burned into her mind and would come out to torture at regular intervals, though she couldn’t place why. She couldn’t quite stop herself from looking in each time it happened, and she hated that even more. 

 

It was two months into their arrangement when she started to notice little things about the encounters in more detail. Cat sounded different when she was enjoying herself compared to when she was faking it. She liked being on top the most. That was Kara’s favorite position for her as well. She would watch Cat’s hands drift over her body as she moved herself up and down. The sounds were genuine as her fingertips circled her clit. Kara could almost imagine it was her own hands moving over the soft skin, but whenever that image came up she would shake her head to clear it and try to ignore the ache it left in her center. She didn’t always manage that last part, feeling ashamed as her fingertips would slip below the waistband of her shorts until she shook silently with Cat’s name waiting on her lips. 

 

After awhile, it became clear that no matter who she was with, she would end the evening laying her head on their chest and pretending to fall asleep. Kara knew what Cat’s breathing sounded like when she was asleep for real and she never relaxed that much with any of these men, though she seemed more peaceful laying on top of them. They would always slip out after a while and Cat would fall into a deep sleep with a frown darkening her features. Kara knew they weren’t welcome to stay, but there was something more in those moments at the end than in the rest of the encounters.

 

The mornings after were always awkward. Kara would stumble and Cat would roll her eyes and ignore her more firmly as if she had done something to irritate the older woman. She started trying to touch her boss more often. Carter aside, there weren’t a lot of people who would actually touch Cat and mean it kindly. The men she saw in the dark gave her a few moments, but it was more out of courtesy than a desire to hold her near. She wondered if more contact might help somehow.

 

Those nights were a strange incongruity that only became more apparent as time went on. More and more Cat would slip and use her real name when they were eating with Carter or when they shared dinner with just the two of them. There were times when Cat would smile at her and she never quite knew what she’d done to deserve it, but it was like breaking through the clouds and being met with the sunlight. She wished the little touches would give way to hugs, but they hadn’t. Each slip was covered up quickly with an insult and the touches weren’t returned. She was never directly asked to stop, so she didn't.

 

Their routines bled together at home as much as they had at work. On Tuesday afternoons she took Carter to science club. Cat would make twice the usual amount of pancakes on the weekends so Kara wouldn’t have to hold back. Cat and Carter would join in when she’d host game night at their place and she and Cat made startlingly good charades partners. Living with Cat made her happy in a way that she couldn’t place—except for those nights that she listened to music loudly in her headphones until the click of the front door told her she and Cat were finally alone again.  

 

She always heard everything anyway, and touching Cat more hadn’t helped either of them. The visits had only grown more frequent over time and Kara found herself resenting them. She could picture herself in the room, but she wasn’t invited. The little touches became her solace and her torture. She was so close to what she wanted, but it slipped from her grasp each time. 

 

It was 5 months into their cohabitation when she saw a man who hadn’t been to the penthouse before. He was a little younger than most of them, maybe, and there was something Kara didn’t like about him as she watched with her X-Ray vision through the walls as Cat led him back to her room. 

 

He pushed Cat onto her back and it was faster than usual before the noises faded. She tried not to watch when Cat was on her back. She couldn’t avoid seeing the person above her and it was too much to ignore. Cat hadn’t made much noise when he finished pushing her into the expensive mattress. She watched as Cat rolled over to lie on his chest but he was already pulling away and getting dressed.

 

_ “I have work in the morning. We both know what this is. Please don’t say that you’re the clingy type.” _

 

_ “Of course not. Lock up on your way out.”  _

Cat turned to face the wall away from the night’s suitor. Kara was torn between relief that tonight’s torture was over and a desire to turn him to dust with her heat vision. Who wouldn’t want Cat laying against them? That was probably the part that Kara was most jealous of. She saw her head resting delicately as she feigned sleep, and she held on just a little too tightly to pull off the ruse. 

 

Another change tonight: Cat’s shoulders shook as the door clicked signalling the man had left. Kara bit her lip. She knew what Cat wanted and she was more than willing to give it to her. What she wasn’t sure about was whether or not Cat would want it from  _ her _ . 

 

Her shoulders shook harder and Kara could hear her sniff a few times. It was more than she could bear. With a lot more nervousness than when she faced down a supervillian, Kara slipped from her room and down the hall. She was uninvited, but maybe she wasn’t so unwelcome. She took a deep breath before opening up Cat’s door as quietly as she could and closing it the same way. 

 

It was a long six steps to Cat’s bed. She pulled back the covers and crawled in next to her. 

 

“Jason?” Cat tried to wipe her face discreetly. “I assume you know where the front door is…”

 

“Not Jason.” Kara reached out and put her arms around the smaller woman, pulling Cat toward her and hoping that she wasn’t sending her life up in smoke yet again. 

 

“Kara, what are you…?” She turned in the embrace, confusion written across her tear-stained face. 

 

“I’m holding you.” The bed smelled like sex and men’s cologne, but the smell of Cat was the strongest and it was intoxicating as she lay next to the naked woman herself. Touching Cat like this was heaven. 

 

“This isn’t appropriate.” The words said one thing, but Cat’s actions said something else - she laid her head down on Kara’s chest and put an arm around her. It felt so right to Kara that she found it hard to breathe. 

 

“I know.” She wrapped Cat up tighter and kissed the top of her head. She belonged here. 

 

There was silence for long moments as Kara felt wet drops of moisture fall onto the skin above her heart. She rubbed slow circles on Cat’s back in response. After a while, the tears had stopped and Cat took a deep breath. 

 

“You don’t have to stay.” It was a soft whisper that cut into the quiet room. 

 

“I know that, too.” Kara relaxed her body further against the bed. “But I’m not going anywhere.”  She never wanted to leave. 

 

“Anyone else would. I keep pushing you away, but you’re still here.” The hint of defeat twinged with surprise in her voice didn’t go unnoticed. 

 

“I’m not anyone else, Cat.” She shook her head. 

 

There was another pause before Cat spoke again softly, “He wasn’t the one I wanted tonight. Not really.” 

 

It took Kara a moment to realize what Cat meant. “Oh. I’d… I’d like that. If you want… ” Kara took a deep breath. “I’ll love you if you want, too.”

 

“I want.” Cat drew a quick breath at the words and a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. 

 

“Really? Good.” Kara’s answering smile could light up a city. 

 


End file.
